Anomaly
'' |image= |series= |production=40358-054/302 |producer(s)= |story= |script= Mike Sussman |director= David Straiton |imdbref=tt0572175 |guests=Robert Rusler as Orgoth, Nathan Anderson as Sergeant Kemper, Julia Rose as Corporal McKenzie, Sean McGowan as Corporal Hawkins, Ken Lally as Lt. Taylor |previous_production=The Xindi |next_production=Extinction |episode=ENT S03E02 |airdate=17 September 2003 |previous_release=The Xindi |next_release=Extinction |story_date(s)=Unknown (2153) |previous_story=The Xindi |next_story=Extinction }} =Summary= As Enterprise continues to travel through the Delphic Expanse, the ship is damaged by destructive spatial anomalies. With most of the primary systems off-line, Ensign Mayweather notices another ship nearby but no life-signs are detected. Captain Archer leads Lieutenant Reed and several MACOs on an away mission, and discover the crew are all dead. Taking what they can, they return and resume their mission. Soon another vessel approaches Enterprise, and a group of aliens beam on board, stealing weapons, food and equipment. The crew finally prevails, and one of the aliens, an Osaarian called Orgoth, is captured. Archer hopes to recover the stolen items, but the Osaarians have masked their ion trail. He then confronts Orgoth in the brig. He explains they were traders attempting to find new trade routes, but after being hit by the spatial anomalies they were unable to leave and resorted to piracy. The crew are able to track the Osaarian vessel, finding a large 1,000-year-old sphere constructed out of a single alloy. Archer and his away team discover a series of habitat modules containing most of the stolen items. The crew also finds a cargo manifest, and Ensign Sato soon learns they had also recently attacked a Xindi ship. Archer once again confronts Orgoth, demanding to know everything about the Xindi. He then drags the Osaarian to an airlock, initiating the decompression cycle. Orgoth soon relents, revealing they downloaded the Xindi database, while providing the access codes to their computer. When the alien ship returns, Mayweather maneuvers Enterprise close enough for Sato to download the bulk of it. Archer sends Orgoth back to his people. =Errors and Explanations= Inconsistencies # The doors of the sphere and the Osaarian ship's hull are both said to be made of polyduranium, as if there were a logical connection between them. But the sphere is 1000 years old and was definitely not built by the Osaarians. It may simply indicate that the Osaarians built the door into the sphere. # The second strange observation is that Archer orders to fire at the sphere in order to lure the Osaarian ship back from the cloaking field. Did he expect that they could scan through the field? The interaction between Enterprise's weapons and the sphere was probably detectable on the Osaarian ship's sensors. Nit Central # Trike on Thursday, September 18, 2003 - 3:00 am: The shuttlepod connected to the alien ship through a top-side hatch. Have we seen this before? Darth Sarcasm on Thursday, September 18, 2003 - 10:21 am: We saw this in Fight or Flight and Sleeping Dogs. Usually, only Enterprise docks with other ships, not shuttlepods. Why didn't Enterprise in this instance? It may not have been able to get close enough due to the anomalies. # Archer ordered Travis, "Take us into orbit" of the sphere. I'm stretching my scientific knowledge here, but doesn't orbiting require the object being orbited to have a gravitational pull. That's what keep the ship in a steady orbit. But with the artifical sphere, it might not have a gravitational pull. KAM on Thursday, September 18, 2003 - 3:19 am: 1. If has mass it will attract/be attracted to other masses. 2. T'Pol mentioned that it was putting out gravimetric waves or somekinda gravimetric technobabble. The sphere was 19 kilometers wide. There are asteroids that are smaller & asteroids which are larger. # Archer later ordered T'Pol, "Have the away team speed things up." I thought away team was a term used in the 24th century, not in the 22nd. LUIGI NOVI on Monday, September 22, 2003 - 8:27 am: Which scene was this? When searching the alien ship, or when searching the Osaarian Sphere? ScottN on Monday, September 22, 2003 - 10:00 am: Archer has come back from the Sphere, and they're beaming the cargo back onboard. SeniramUK 16:13, November 11, 2018 (UTC) Remember this isn’t the first Enterprise episode to describe a team operating away from the ship as an Away Team – Hoshi used it in a season 1 episode. # Keith Alan Morgan on Thursday, September 18, 2003 - 3:12 am:''The alien says that they knew Enterprise was not from the Expanse because they didn't have a Trellium D coating, but later the sphere is said to have a poly-duranium shell just like the alien ship. Soooooo if the aliens know Trellium D is so good, then why don't they use it? 'Darth Sarcasm on Thursday, September 18, 2003 - 10:21 am: Didn't the foreman in last week's episode say the tellium was used for insulation? I could have fiberglass insulation in my house, but my house is still made of wood. LUIGI NOVI on Monday, September 22, 2003 - 8:27 am: Trellium D is an insulation, not a coating. Moreover, a ship’s hull can have more than one layer to it, Keith. Page 22 of the NextGen Tech Manual shows that The Enterprise-D hull, for example, is composed of 7-9 different layers.' # Also the implication is that the sphere was built by the pirates, but later it's said that the sphere is hundreds or thousands of years old. 'Darth Sarcasm on Thursday, September 18, 2003 - 10:21 am: I assumed the pirates simply used the pre-existing sphere. SeniramUK 16:13, November 11, 2018 (UTC) Perhaps it was built by their ancestors!' # It's hypothesized that this sphere may be responsible for the anomolies, so why not shut it down and see? 'LUIGI NOVI on Monday, September 22, 2003 - 8:27 am: Archer has to find the Xindi, his crew doesn’t know enough about the technology to play around with it, and other Osaarian pirate ships that use it as a base may be on the way back to it.' # Okay, important though it is to get information on the Xindi, shouldn't they also be downloading the pirates' database so they can figure out how they got their engines & stuff to work in the Expanse? 'LUIGI NOVI on Monday, September 22, 2003 - 8:27 am: Didn’t they do so? And didn’t Orgoth tell Archer that the trellium D was what allowed them to do this?' # Why would taking out the engine wipe out the alien computers? Shouldn't the computers be on an independent power source in case the engines get damaged? "The engines are down. Bring up the repair schematics." 'Chris Booton (Cbooton) on Thursday, September 18, 2003 - 10:12 am: Collaterial damage. They might miss and hit a part of the hull that harms the computer core or taking out the engines could cause interal explosions that could damage the computer or cause a general protection fault. SeniramUK 16:13, November 11, 2018 (UTC)''The weapon fire could have severed the power links from the reserve power supply.' # Nove Rockhoomer on Thursday, September 18, 2003 - 2:58 pm: The pirates didn't expect the Enterprise to be able to track their ion trail, but once they accomplished that, it was ridiculously easy to find the sphere, get inside and take whatever they wanted. They could have taken a lot of stuff the pirates stole from others, if they had wanted it. Makes we wonder why they didn't. Archer should be willing to steal from pirates. He doesn't want to stoop to their level! # The captured pirate says that Archer is showing mercy by taking him back to the sphere. But he already talked earlier about how his captain would be "angry" (can't remember the exact word) if he told Archer anything. So leaving him for the captain to punish (probably severely, considering the codes he gave Archer) doesn't sound too merciful. LUIGI NOVI on Monday, September 22, 2003 - 8:27 am: With the Osaarian ship disabled, and since Orgoth probably knows of other resources on the Sphere that he can use to get away and strike off on his own, I didn’t see this as a big contradiction. ''SeniramUK 16:13, November 11, 2018 (UTC)''His comment about mercy is a reference to Archer not killing or seriously wounding him. # KAM on Friday, September 19, 2003 - 5:23 am: IIRC T'Pol said that the hull of the spere & the hull of the Osaarian ship are made of a poly-duranium alloy, which implied both were built by the same manufacturer. Later dialogue indicated that sphere was hundreds to thousands of years old. Then again, was it actually said the pirate ship was Osaarian made or just manned by Osaarians? Darth Sarcasm on Friday, September 19, 2003 - 9:01 am: I just assumed the pirates used elements of the sphere to construct/salvage their ship when they were stuck in the Expanse, which is why they were made of the same materials. Or (as you suggested) maybe they took a pre-existing ship. It seems unlikely that the pirates (if they were technologically advanced enough to construct the sphere) would need to resort to piracy. LUIGI NOVI on Monday, September 22, 2003 - 8:27 am: Why is this a nit? Why can’t it be nearly a thousand years old? It’s also possible the pirates acquired the sphere from someone else, perhaps other members of their race. Or perhaps they stole the ship. Or, they may have used parts from the sphere to make the ship. # Also interesting that Archer didn't seem to try to find out how the sphere's cloaking device worked. One would think that when you're hunting down a dangerous enemy in an unfriendly region of space it might be helpful to try & find a way to cloak your ship. Polls Voice on Friday, September 19, 2003 - 1:33 pm: Don't forget the Suliban cell ship in their launch bay. Of course, Maybe Trip has refused to work with any more cloaking technology out of fear he'd be walking around the ship with an invisible head. (Now theres an idea.) SeniramUK 16:13, November 11, 2018 (UTC) Scans of the sphere could have conceivably proved it would have been impossible for Enterprise to duplicate. # The Undesirable Element on Friday, September 19, 2003 - 2:48 pm: The Osaarian tells Archer that the clouds surrounding the expanse will let you in but they won't let you out. Bet that had to be kick in the groin for Archer. Though it raises a problem. In "The Expanse" Soval tells Archer that a Klingon expedition went into the expanse and WHEN THEY RETURNED their bodies were inverted. He also says that several Vulcan ships have entered but FEW (not none) have returned. Clearly it is possible. Maybe Archer should have gotten that information from Soval before he left. Clint X on Saturday, September 20, 2003 - 9:08 pm: CLEARLY it is possible. The Xindi weapon probe made it to Earth. Either the Osaarian was lying, ignorant, or had some technological problem that prevented them from leaving. Brian Fitzgerald on Sunday, September 21, 2003 - 5:23 pm: For the Klingons, exactly. The ship got out but all the people on it were dead. I wouldn't call that making it out. As for the probe, who says The Osarian knows anything about the probe. He may well think it's impossible to get out of the clouds alive. Clint X on Sunday, September 21, 2003 - 6:22 pm: BF nobody said the Osarian knew anything about the Xindi probe. You correctly, if a bit redundantly, state that he may well think it's impossible to get out. I said he could be ignorant. Look it up if you don't know what it means. If you want an example of someone who got out and was still alive, I would once again refer you to the Xindi weapon probe. The evidence seems to be that the pilot was still alive when he arrived at Earth. Mylan on Sunday, September 21, 2003 - 9:20 pm: I thought they said the Klingons were alive despite being inverted. Still, that's by no means a pleasant thing.LUIGI NOVI on Monday, September 22, 2003 - 8:27 am: True. But one wonders if the creators realized this when they wrote this line. Were they deliberately depicting Orgoth’s ignorance? Or did they themselves forget this? Such dialogue is usually supposed to create an effect on the viewer (“Oh, no, how will Archer and his crew get out of the Expanse?”). It might makes sense to discover if this is a mistake on their part. # This is very trivial but it made me laugh. When they find the sphere and start retrieving their goods, they have a quick scene showing two containers being beamed aboard and then loaded onto a cart. The thing is, the crewmen toss the containers around like they're empty (which, in reality, they probably are) and then load them onto this large (and presumably heavy) cart. Why not just carry the two containers to their appropriate destination? Is the cart really necessary? LUIGI NOVI on Monday, September 22, 2003 - 8:27 am: It didn’t look like those containers were necessarily light or empty. Sure, they weren’t weazing or wobbling as they carried them, but they had a few feet to carry them from the transporter pad to the cart. It’s possible that they were only moderately heavy, but even something moderately heavy will get harder to carry the longer a distance you have to carry it, especially if it’s something big like those containers that’s difficult to get leverage on, and that doesn’t have handles to carry it by. SeniramUK 16:13, November 11, 2018 (UTC) Using the cart allows them to keep at least one hand free, thus allowing them to use their weapons if needed. ''' # When the coffee first floats away and creates the coffee cloud ("There's coffee in that nebula") shouldn't Archer have immediately scooped it up somehow. Leaving it there could prove problematic if is starts to spread throughout the room. ''LUIGI NOVI on Monday, September 22, 2003 - 8:27 am:'' I agree, but I figure he’s just angry and stressed over the events of the past several weeks.Which leads me to this question: Why didn't the coffee spread around the room? ''Clint X on Saturday, September 20, 2003 - 9:08 pm:'' Maybe some kind of ANOMALY made it behave the way it did?' # ''LUIGI NOVI on Monday, September 22, 2003 - 7:05 am: Trip goes to see Phlox in Act 3 about his trouble sleeping, and Phlox tells him to place one Aldebaran mud on his chest and another on his abdomen, because their secretions act as a natural sedative. Why would secretions with sedative properties be placed on the chest and abdomen? Barring collecting these secretions for direct injection into the bloodstream, wouldn’t it be better to place such thing on one’s head? Now I realize that Phlox may have been saying this as a ruse to convince Trip to continue with T’Pol’s neuro-pressure, but I can’t imagine how specifying the chest and abdomen instead of the head would play into this tactic. '''Brian Webber on Monday, September 22, 2003 - 9:11 am: IIRC, I think Pholx's comment that Trip should be careful not to roll over onto one of them reveals this as a ploy. :) ''' Category:Episodes Category:Enterprise